La libertà che non abbiamo, la libertà che siamo: per un’ontologia critica a partire da Hegel

Abstract

In my essay, I will address the notion of freedom, focusing in particular on its realisation. Therefore, I will use the conceptual framework of Hegel’s Science of Logic, trying to show how in the Logic – particularly in the Doctrine of Essence – Hegel points to the core of the question of freedom, elaborating the link between freedom and human essence. I will argue that he shows how such a link is constitutive of the realisation of freedom and at the same time of the knowledge of the essence. I intend to show that such a speculative configuration of the essence-liberty nexus offers radically critical perspectives within the current ethical-social debate on the relationship between the source of normativity and the realisation of freedom. By shifting its focus from normativity (of Sollen) to essence and by showing how the normative problem is an ontological problem, the Hegelian approach allows to understand the ‘essence’ as a critical and emancipatory process of self-realisation.